UPDATE 2-Storm Emily kills four, may reform over Caribbean

* Little threat seen to U.S. coast, Gulf oil patch
(Recasts with updated death toll, details)

MIAMI, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Emily killed four
people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, authorities said on
Friday, as remnants of the storm drifted over the Caribbean
with a "high chance" of restrengthening into a tropical
cyclone.

Emily, the fifth named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane
season, dissipated Thursday as it approached mountainous
Hispaniola island, which is shared by Haiti and the Dominican
Republic.

The storm's leftovers posed no threat to oil and gas
production facilities in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and most
forecasts showed the system keeping well off the southeast U.S.
coast.

But authorities said Emily could still pack a punch after
its heavy rainfall killed three in the Dominican Republic, two
of whom were swept away by a swollen river in Higuey, a small
town about 100 miles (160 km) east of the capital Santo
Domingo.

At least one other person died in neighboring Haiti in
flooding in the sprawling southern city of Les Cayes.

Thousands of Dominicans and Haitians were forced to
evacuate their homes because of Emily, with dozens of villages
cut off by floodwaters, officials said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the weather system
that spawned Emily remained mostly disorganized Friday, as it
hovered nearly stationary midway between the north-central
coast of Cuba and the central Bahamas.

But conditions were gradually becoming more conducive for
the system to restrengthen.

"This system has a high chance, 70 percent, of regenerating
into a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours," the
Miami-based hurricane center said. It had earlier pegged the
chances of Emily's re-birth at 60 percent.

Forecasters are predicting a busier-than-average hurricane
season this year. [ID:nN1E7730YS]

On Thursday the U.S. government weather agency NOAA raised
its outlook for activity in the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season,
predicting it would produce seven to 10 hurricanes.
[ID:nN1E7730WR]

Three to five of those were expected to strengthen into
"major" hurricanes of Category 3 or higher on the five-step
Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, with top winds of at least 110
miles (178 km) per hour, it said.

In May, NOAA projected six to 10 hurricanes.
(Writing by Kevin Gray; Editing by Tom Brown and Eric Walsh)